Student-government leaders at the University of Central Florida, worried about future cuts and alterations to the state's Bright Futures merit scholarships, are working on proposals they hope will help preserve the program for future generations.

The idea is for students to formulate their own set of cost-saving ideas for lawmakers to consider next spring in case the state budget crisis forces another round of changes to the popular Lottery-funded scholarship program.

During the past legislative session, students were taken by surprise by unprecedented moves to cap scholarship awards and require students to reimburse their schools for courses they drop after set deadlines.

The cap, which took effect this fall, was unveiled late in last spring's legislative session.

The cap blindsided students and parents who expected the state to keep its promise to pay up to 100 percent of tuition and fees at state universities and community colleges for students who met relatively modest academic standards measured by grade-point averages and college-entrance-exam scores.

Now that the state has demonstrated its willingness to make cutbacks in the program when economic pressures are great enough, students must remain vigilant, student leaders said.

"If we don't take matters into our own hands, decisions will be made for us," Stephen Mortellaro, governmental-affairs director for UCF's Student Government Association, said during a forum on Bright Futures attended by about 40 students this week.

If students don't speak up early in the legislative process and instead wait until lawmakers announce proposed changes, "we've already seen what happens," Mortellaro said.

Among the questions students are asking one another:

•Should Bright Futures awards be limited to students attending public colleges and universities, leaving out those attending private schools?

•Should financial need and not just academic merit be taken into consideration?

•Should students receive higher awards if they pursue degrees in science, technology, engineering and math — the STEM fields that experts say are under-enrolled?

None of these questions is being asked for the first time.

State agencies that monitor spending have been calling for such cost controls and need-based sharing of scholarships for years.

But when the economy wasn't as bad, legislators routinely rejected calls to change Bright Futures, knowing that students and parents would vigorously protest if benefits were reduced.

When legislation was proposed last year to give students in STEM topics more scholarship money at the expense of those in other majors, students fought back with e-mails, phone calls, and a Facebook page, Protect Your Bright Futures, that still has 17,000 members statewide. The proposed legislation went nowhere.

But what's clear is that the program's runaway growth has been slowed now that a cap on awards is in place.

Without a cap, the program went from costing $70 million for 42,000 scholarships when it started in 1997 to about $435 million for 170,000 awards last year.